The National Policy Institute says “They will fail. We will persevere. The conference will take place.”

NPI website

BUDAPEST–Hungary wants to ban a conference, scheduled for later this week, of the U.S.-based National Policy Institute, which the Central European country’s government considers extremist and racist.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ordered Interior Minister Sandor Pinter on Sunday to use all legal means at his disposal to prevent the conference, scheduled for this weekend in Budapest.

“Ever since [it came into power in] 2010, this government has been the strongest bastion against any form of extremism in Hungary and also in Central Europe,” Zoltan Kovacs, Hungarian government spokesman, told The Wall Street Journal on Monday.

“We oppose this conference from every aspect,” Mr. Kovacs added.

The NPI said it is disappointed and puzzled by the Hungarian government’s action and that it will obey the laws of Hungary. Much about the event “might have been ‘lost in translation’ or, … [Hungary] is responding to untruthful messages sent by those who oppose the Congress as well as the very notion of traditional identity,” the NPI added. Read More »

Apples are one of the Hungarian produce most affected by the Russian trade ban.

MTI/MTVA Zoltan Mathe

BUDAPEST–Hungary’s economic growth and inflation may slow moderately as a result of the deepening conflict between neighboring Ukraine and Russia, the Hungarian central bank said on Thursday.

Due to lower Hungarian exports to the two countries engaged in conflict that has seen demand from them fall, as well as the negative impact of Russian trade sanctions on Hungary, Hungarian gross domestic product growth may slow by 0.2 percentage point this year and 0.4 percentage point next year, the central bank said in its quarterly Inflation Report.

The National Bank of Hungary expects this year’s GDP growth at 3.3% and next year’s at 2.5%, including the impact of the conflict. Read More »

BUDAPEST–Pictures of members of the police taken at public events can now be published without the consent of the policeman and woman depicted in them, Hungary’s Constitutional Court said in a ruling published Wednesday, a decision that many news outlets regard a win in the battle for Hungary’s press freedom.

So far, faces of members of the police had to be covered to keep them unrecognizable, even when they were depicted in public events such as rallies. The Constitutional Court now lifted this controversial rule.

Last year, media industry people at a conference ahead of changes to the civil code said the Hungarian regulation was unique in Europe and the closest where such practice could be found was Azerbaijan. They’ve tried to lobby for an amendment, without success; the Supreme Court then said members of the police weren’t public figures. Read More »

Hungary and Russian natural gas firm OAO Gazprom on Monday discussed natural gas supplies for Hungary this winter and the planned construction of a natural gas pipeline dubbed South Stream as Budapest appears to be unharmed by the shortage of Russian gas some countries experienced amid the separatist conflict in Ukraine.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who earlier this year signed up for a Russian nuclear reactor along with Russian financing, met on Monday with Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller.

Unlike some European Union member countries, particularly in Central Europe, Russia hasn’t cut its natural gas exports to Hungary. Russia is the only gas exporter to Hungary. In 2013, the volume of Russian gas supplies to Hungary amounted to about 6 billion cubic meters. Read More »

BUDAPEST–Hungary left its main interest rate unchanged at a record low for the second month in a row on Tuesday, keeping faith in its policy to propel sluggish inflation and maintain momentum in the economy.

The National Bank of Hungary kept the main monetary policy rate at 2.1%, in line with its July pledge not to alter it until the end of next year, and follows a two-year-long easing cycle that started in August 2012, when the key rate stood at 7%.

The bank’s decision was in line with the expectations of 13 economists in a Wall Street Journal poll.

Deputy Governor Adam Balog told the Journal last week the bank was committed to keeping rates at a record low until the end of 2015 and that he saw no room to go lower, as the central bank works to cut the country’s international debt exposure to avoid having to tighten monetary policy if emerging-market turmoil resurfaces; the bank would only do so should a crisis were to hit and if all other tools were exploited, he said. Read More »

‘Danke Ungarn’ is how Germany is thanking Hungary on the billboards installed throughout the country, an expression of gratitude for helping German unification by opening up the Hungarian-Austrian border to East Germans 25 years ago this Thursday.

The Hungarian government decided Sept. 11, 1989 to let East German citizens flee from Hungary to Austria and then to West Germany. By then, East Germans, who otherwise had customarily vacationed at Hungary’s Lake Balaton, had been waiting by the thousands in several Hungarian refugee camps to get a West German passport to cross the border.

That was the first time that a member country of the then-Soviet bloc had opened up its ‘Iron Curtain’ borders to the West. Elsewhere in the bloc, communism was collapsing and Soviet domination was ending.

“This was the high point, and a peaceful one, of that eventful year and historic summer,” Lieselore Cyrus, Germany’s ambassador to Budapest, said when unveiling the billboard. Read More »

Nyiregyhaza, HUNGARY–Hungary’s central bank is ready to use part of the country’s foreign-currency reserves to help the government rid households of their costly foreign-currency mortgages, a top central bank official said over the weekend.

While ensuring that the reduction in the country’s foreign-currency reserves were gradual, the central bank would provide the foreign currency to retail banks so they could convert foreign-currency mortgages into the local currency, said Adam Balog, a deputy governor at the National Bank of Hungary.

Retail banks need foreign currency to convert foreign-exchange mortgages into Hungarian forints. Should they need to tap the currency market to buy it, the Hungarian forint would likely weaken sharply. The central bank is willing to provide that foreign currency to them at market rates, Mr. Balog said.

The central bank is capable of providing the funds to the banks in a single step, even at some point during the remainder of this year, Mr. Balog said in a speech at the annual meeting of the Hungarian Economists’ Association. Read More »

Hungary won’t see European Union development funds frozen despite calls from Norway to take punitive steps, a stance prompted by the Hungarian prime minister’s talk of aiming to use authoritarian regimes as models for his country.

Norway said it halted 140 million euro ($193 million) of development funds to the Central European country.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said recently he was going to model his nation on autocratic countries like Russia and Singapore. Read More »

BUDAPEST–Hungary is to replace all banknotes by 2018 in a move that is widely seen to rule out a conversion to the euro anytime soon.

The central bank, which last replaced banknotes between 1997 and 2001–countries customarily leave banknotes in circulation for 10 to 15 years–said the measure is to protect against counterfeit money and fraud.

Analysts added that the step is in concert with Hungary’s intention of holding on to its national currency, the forint.

“This is an indication that there’s not much of a chance of euro adoption before 2020,” said Gergely Gabler, an economist at Erste Bank in Budapest. Read More »

About Emerging Europe

Emerging Europe Real Time provides sharp analysis and insight into what’s making news in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on the expertise of our reporters in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey, the site provides an inside track on economics, politics and business in this emerging part of the European continent.